


rule number one

by whalers



Series: for what binds us [5]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: (x2!), Crushes, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 10:54:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11484894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalers/pseuds/whalers
Summary: Don’t get caught by the overseers. Don’t mingle with the overseers. Don’t have anything to do with the overseers.Jenkins is pretty sure finding an overseer captivating falls under that very important rule.; two of the boys go out on a supply run and young Jenkins finds himself enamored by someone he should have nothing to do with.





	rule number one

It’s a general consensus among the whalers that overseers are their number one enemy and must never be trusted, must never be forgiven -- not including the ones they manage to bring into their family. Jenkins knows this. He’s seen the lingering scars on Cleon, all that mental baggage that he’ll carry with him for the rest of his life. He knows that Aeolos narrowly avoided being drowned after failing the Trials of Aptitude. He knows they blind the Sisters and the term isn’t metaphorical. He knows that the overseers would love to get their hands on Daud, or any one of them, and torture the gifts from the Outsider out of them. He may not be very old but he’s not fucking stupid. He knows all of this.

But no one ever cared to warn him about the one overseer who refuses to wear those hideous masks and patrols the streets with his runt of a wolfhound. No one ever told him that he may meet this overseer one day.

It starts off as a typical day. Daud has made some new acquaintances, particularly one who runs an apothecary shop down by the Distillery District. They’ve been running low on medical supplies and this is the opportunity they’ve all been waiting for. Daud sends Jenkins and Cleon off with a list of supplies they need to buy. It’s pretty straightforward. All Jenkins has been going on are supply runs so he knows exactly what to do (he’s been waiting and waiting to go on an actual mission but apparently he isn’t ready yet. and somehow Rulfio gets to go on a mission before he does, despite being younger and newer? he doesn’t think this is very fair. just because he knows his way around chemicals and first aid doesn’t mean he can’t go on missions. is he going to be stuck as a novice forever?).

They go during the evening, across the roofs and down back alleyways. They avoid the Bottle Street Gang and the City Watch. People never look up on the roofs. It’s incredible how easily they can slip by others these days. He only wishes he had been half as stealthy before Daud found him. Everything would have ended differently then; he would never have gotten caught and his sister would have never succumbed to her illness. If only he’d been faster. If only he’d been stealthier. If only he’d been _smarter_. He was so powerless then.

“Jenkins. Come back to me.” Cleon shakes his shoulder, jerking him back to the present. He’s been gripping the edge of the gutter so tightly his hands have started bleeding. He wipes his hands on his pants and stands up.

The world is so much more open now. He owes Daud so much. The least he can do is focus on the mission and not fuck everything up. They could very well be the isle’s most feared assassins but if they can’t even scrounge up enough supplies to keep them alive, they’ll be dead before the year turns.

Cleon gazes at him, concern in his half lidded, murky green eyes. “Are you okay?”

Jenkins nods, trying to ignore the way his hands sting. “Fine. Where’s the place?”

Cleon’s eyes flick down to his hands for a moment before he turns and points to a house one street away. There are flowers in the upstairs windows, a valiant attempt at making the building not as dreary as the ones surrounding it. Dunwall is always so grey and cloudy. It’s nothing like the bright, sunbaked streets of Serkonos, vines crawling their way up the sides of houses, the fluffy white clouds overhead, the friendly people selling their goods on the streets. It’s nothing like his village in Tyvia, cold and snowy during the winters, but the lanterns hanging from windows always cast a gentle glow onto the streets, and spring always came with brightly colored flowers and new beginnings. He’s never actually been to Serkonos, but he’s seen enough portraits and read enough books on the place to get a good mental image of where his father was born. His parents are both in the void now and he doubts he’ll ever be able to go back to Tyvia or see Serkonos. The crummy streets of Dunwall are his home now.

They drop down to the streets and make their way in through a back window. Whoever runs the apothecary may be on their side, but he doesn’t know who frequents this place. It won’t do any good to get in trouble on such a simple mission.

As if he doesn’t have a care in the world, Cleon strolls in, hands clasped behind his back. Jenkins is happy to see how much his friend has improved since he first arrived but voiddamn, he could at least be a _little_ wary. “Excuse me? We’re here to pick up supplies.”

A mess of curly brown hair pops up from behind the counter. They have dark skin, just like him, and have the lightest blue eyes Jenkins has ever seen, and if they didn’t smile the second their eyes fell upon them, Jenkins would think this person is blind. He also thinks they may be a boy but… well, he’s not taking second chances and assuming this person is the same as him. They smile brightly and place a container of gauze onto the counter, wiping their hands on their apron. “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in. Welcome! You’re from the slums, am I right?”

They seem kind enough and judging by the way they seem to be deepening their voice (just like him!), Jenkins feels safe in referring to them as a he. Jenkins nods, wincing slightly when he clenches his fists and gets a throb of pain for his forgetfulness. Before he can open his mouth to list what they’ve come for, the shop owner, who’s name card reads Siam, is in front of him and lifting his hands to the light. “You have some nasty cuts here. Nothing I can’t fix. I don’t want your cuts to get infected on the way back. Just sit on the stool there.” Then Siam walks off to get what he needs.

Jenkins sits down numbly, staring at Siam vaguely in shock. He looks up at Cleon, raising his eyebrows, but Cleon just shrugs and smiles.

“He seems nice,” he says quietly.

“Yeah… I guess.” Jenkins has never had anyone react to him being hurt in such a way before. He supposes there _are_ people like this out there, overshadowed by the hundreds of cold hearted bastards that kick down anyone who shows even a breath of kindness. He tries to shove the thoughts away. He doesn’t want to get caught up in his mind again. This is an easy mission. Though, he can’t help but wonder how Siam got mixed up with someone like Daud in the first place. They seem like polar opposites. Daud is all hard lines and gravel. Siam seems soft around the edges, his Serkonan accent much thicker than Daud’s muted one.

Siam returns with some disinfectant and bandages, swiftly taking care of Jenkins’ wounds without a second thought. His calloused fingers are deft, not fumbling once as he wraps the bandages around Jenkins’ hands, leaving enough mobility for Jenkins to wield his sword if need be.

“So!” Siam places his hands on his hips once he’s done, looking for all the world as if he genuinely enjoys his job, patching up scruffy kids from questionable backgrounds in the back of his shop. “What exactly did you need?”

Right. Time to get what they’d come for. Jenkins digs into the pocket of his grey coat and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper, smoothing it out against his knee. “Needles and thread for stitching, syringes, laudanum, bandages…” He continues listing the items as Siam darts all over the shop, dropping the items into an unmarked box.

“I’m afraid I don’t have laudanum I can spare at the moment,” Siam says, carrying the box over. Cleon takes it with a thankful smile, handing over the money. “But I should be getting a new shipment in a few days. I’ll get Jasper to send word when it’s available. Is that alright?”

Jasper, Jenkins muses, is one of their new informants. Why Daud trusts someone who’s Rulfio’s age to be a valid source of information, Jenkins isn’t sure. And he’s not biased against age or anything, he’s only two years older than Rulfio anyway, he just thinks it’s a little strange. But then, maybe not _all_ that strange considering Daud has a handpicked group of street kids he’s training to be supernatural assassins. Where did he even come up with that idea? Did the void whisper in his dreams, the Outsider appearing before him and passing off cryptic advice on how Daud should spend the rest of his days? The world is a weird place.

“That’s perfectly fine. Thank you, Siam.”

And as they exchange pleasantries and names and all sorts of silly, trivial things Jenkins would never tell someone during their first meeting, two things happen in a matter of seconds. One, thunder crashes so loud Jenkins can feel it in his chest, and two, the door to the shop flies open and in hurries a boy carrying a wolfhound in his arms. There is something so wrong and terrifying for what feels like an eternity. The boy is an _overseer_. Despite not wearing a mask, the coat is a dead give away, as well as the way he carries himself even as he hefts his injured pet onto a nearby table. That stiff sort of way all overseers walk; he and Daud have been trying to shake Cleon out of it for months.

“She’s injured!” The boy is almost near tears, his bright blue eyes watery in the light of the shop. His voice, though frantic, has a hint of a Serkonan accent that rounds out his words nicely. “I-I don’t know what happened. We were on patrol and -- th-there was -- I don’t know but she--”

“Mason!” Siam and Cleon exclaim at the same time but Siam is the only one to move forward, grasping Mason’s shoulders and squeezing them. “Breathe. Keep breathing, that’s right, deep breaths. Nissa will be fine. I’ll take good care of her and patch her up good as new, alright? Now go sit down.”

They talk as if they’re old friends, which is more than a little surprising because why would Daud think it’s even a little safe to trust someone who mingles with the _overseers_ of all people? But that’s not what floors him. It’s the ghostly paleness of Cleon’s skin and the way his hands shake as he stares at Mason as if the boy’s risen from the dead. Later he’ll realize it’s not all that surprising for Cleon to know an overseer considering he used to be one, but now it completely baffles him.

“You _know_ him?” he hisses, hand already on the hilt of his sword. Cleon only nods minutely, swallowing hard. Jenkins can’t tell if it’s fear or shock that has his friend this way.

Mason doesn’t seem able to sit, much too anxious about the wellbeing of his hound, and paces in a precise fashion -- four paces, a sharp turn, four paces, a sharp turn. He hasn’t noticed them yet, which is fine with Jenkins, who’s finally stood and is inching away towards the back window, but suddenly there’s a loud crash and everyone but Siam startles. Cleon has dropped their crate of supplies and is taking slow steps towards Mason, who watches the both of them with wide eyes.

“Cleon?”

That spurs Cleon into action and he rushes to Mason, grasping his arms and seemingly looking him over for… something. Injuries? Jenkins isn’t sure. They shouldn’t even be here anymore. Has Cleon lost his mind? A cold spike of dread chills his insides at the thought of Cleon betraying him and returning to the overseers, of overseers flooding their base and ripping apart their family. He crushes the thought as quickly as it appears. No. Cleon would never do something like that. The guy has told him, late at night as they sat on the roof, keeping watch while most of the other slept, that the overseers ruined his life, that he’d been fully prepared to die when Daud found him, and they are the reason he is still alive. There was a heavy implication that Jenkins contributed most out of everyone, with how he tries to soothe him from nightmares, defends him from the others who judge him for being an ex-overseer, for simply being his friend, and Jenkins curses himself for thinking that Cleon could ever abandon them.

“They… they told me you were dead,” Mason exclaims, almost breathless. “They said the heretics killed the entire squad. They couldn’t find your body so I--I’ve been praying, hoping they hadn’t killed you… oh, oh blessed Spirits, I’m so glad you’re alive.” He smiles then, and Jenkins feels his breath catching in his throat. He hasn’t a clue why, he doesn’t want to _know_ why, but try as he might, he can’t tear his eyes away from the overseer.

Cleon’s shock seems to melt into something uneasy, though a smile still spreads across his face. “I’m so sorry, I… I’ve been so scared you’ve been hurt since I’ve been gone. I’m so glad,” a shaky exhale. He squeezes Mason’s arms again. “I’m so glad to see you again.”

And Jenkins knows, at this very moment, only because he is studying Mason’s face so carefully, only because he has been working so closely with Hobson in the infirmary who has such a limited range of emotions that he’s taken to memorizing each one that appears on his face, when Mason comes to the realization. The change in his features is subtle. The smile fades, which should be typical considering the circumstances (his hound may die after all, no reunion could top that), but it’s replaced with surprise, then a mask of carefully pieced together calmness -- as calm as one can be given the circumstances.

“Your uniform.”

Cleon nearly cringes. He drops his hands and stares at the floorboards. “I’m sorry, my friend.”

The pieces all fit into place and Jenkins can’t take any more of this. As captivating as this boy looks, he is still an _overseer_ , and if anyone in the city recognizes their uniform, it’s them. He yanks Cleon back by his arm, giving him a harsh shake. “We’re _leaving_ ,” he growls. He bends to pick up the crate and transverses to the window in seconds. He hears a shocked gasp but doesn’t dare to look back as he climbs out of the window.

“Why?” Masons asks. His voice sounds lost.

“They saved me,” Cleon barely manages. “I’m so sorry. Please, be safe.” He climbs out the window behind Jenkins and it’s a long trip back to their base.

 

* * *

 

Rule number one of being a supernatural assassin (they really need a shorter term for their gang): don’t get caught by the overseers. Don’t mingle with the overseers. Don’t have anything to do with the overseers.

Jenkins is pretty sure finding an overseer captivating falls under that very important rule. He wants to scream. He does, in fact, scream. At Daud. Which is another mistake, but dammit, he can’t deal with everything that just happened. His thoughts are a mess. The apothecary itself isn’t an issue, Siam hasn’t done anything wrong, the guy is just tending to anyone who’s gotten hurt, selling supplies, making a living. That isn’t the issue. The issue is Daud sending them to a place where an overseer frequents. Daud has to have known. He knows _everything_ , and if he doesn’t know everything at first, he always finds out.

“You sent us to a place where overseers do business! Are you fucking crazy?! What if he goes back to the Abbey and tells everyone we do business there!”

Cleon is grabbing him by the arm, yanking him back and murmuring in his soft voice _please don’t Jenkins stop_. Daud stares at him, eyes narrowed. Daud stays silent as Jenkins yells out his frustrations and confusion, until Jenkins has to stop, breathing hard, terrified eyes staring at the floor. Jenkins isn’t sure when Hobson had wrapped his arms around his middle, holding him tightly to prevent him from… whatever he may have done during his outburst. Has Hobson always had such strong arms?

“Are you done?”

Jenkins gives a miniscule nod. Regret seeps in immediately. He’s going to be punished. No one yells at Daud and gets away with it. He has absolutely no seniority to back himself up either. Even Javier knows when to reel himself in when he’s speaking to Daud. Daud is a man who can slit a man’s throat in seconds. He can go inside a building and eliminate every single person without getting a scratch. He’s the leader of their assassin group for hire. And Jenkins just _yelled at him_.

“Listen to me very carefully. I’m not going to repeat myself.” Daud’s steely voice books no argument. “I sent you two there because I knew it was safe. That overseer is no threat to us. He is a friend of the apothecary owner, of an informant of ours, of someone who has been Marked. He knows this. He is no threat to us.”

That should come as a comfort. All Jenkins can feel is cold hands squeezing his insides as he realizes just how badly he fucked up by yelling at Daud and throwing baseless accusations. He shouldn’t have done that. He should have just asked about it. Instead he made a whole show of it, screaming like a child who doesn’t understand how to do a simple task (nevermind that he _is_ a child, that’s not the point).

“Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” his voice is barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“He’s just scared, sir,” Hobson says, voice as tired and neutral as always. He’s rubbing gentle circles over Jenkins’ chest. If this was any other time he’d throw Hobson off him, or at least move Hobson’s hands down to his stomach. But he’s too scared to move. “We got more to fear from the Abbey than we ever did before. He’s just scared. He didn’t know.”

 

* * *

 

In the end, Daud gives him a week of cleaning duty. That means cleaning the dorms, the halls, and the bathrooms. It’s not as bad as it could be. He’s going to be cleaning with Killian, and even though he can’t imagine getting along with someone like that ever in his life, at least he won’t be doing all that work on his own. It’s a light sentence, he thinks as he lays in bed that evening, watching Aedan paint on the wall opposite his bunk. He heard Killian got thrown across the room for whatever he did, plus cleaning duty for three weeks.

Cleon sits beside him, eyes closed, as tells him all he knows about Mason. He was transferred from Karnaca to Dunwall at age ten. He wants to become the High Overseer and make some changes to the Abbey. He’s the most determined and lively overseer Cleon has ever known. His ability to keep his emotions in check rivals Malon. He’s Jenkins’ age, albeit several inches taller. He refuses to wear the overseer masks because he wants the citizens of Dunwall to know who’s preaching to them. He hates the Outsider, obviously, but joined the Abbey willingly, not by being ripped away from his family like Cleon. His family and friends even followed him from Karnaca. Mason sounds like the type of overseer everyone in the Abbey wishes they could be. Sure of his beliefs and determined to do what is right, firm on the notion that the good people of the isles don’t need to rely on the Outsider’s influence to get through life, that they don’t need the Outsider to poison them with his magic. He clearly must have some level of tolerance, considering he’s friends with one of their informants and friends with someone who’s been Marked. Has he given up on trying to sway them from the Outsider’s hold or does he still try to instill his beliefs in them? Does he realize that he’s going against the Abbey by not turning them in?

There are a lot of questions Jenkins has. Questions he may never receive the answers to unless he sits Mason down and gets them directly from his pretty mouth. The odds of that are pretty slim. A huge part of him wants to seek Mason out and look at his features and study them carefully and know all about him. To feel if his hands are soft or rough from the Abbey’s strict training. To listen to his voice and get his accent to come out stronger. To see if his hair is really as soft as it looks. But an even bigger part is metaphorically kicking him in the face and telling his stupid thoughts to _shut up_ and _assassins and overseers don’t mix._ He knows this. He doesn’t want to admit what he’s feeling is a crush because, well. That’s embarrassing. In this case, it’s dangerous. Even if Mason is really no threat to them. Getting a crush on an overseer seems like breaking every rule. He doesn’t want the others to look down on him. He doesn’t want the others knowing, _period._

Jenkins feels gentle fingers undo his ponytail and comb through his hair. Cleon is humming some song he’s never heard of, probably Morlish. As he was lost in his thoughts, Aedan has stopped painting and left the room and Hobson moved from his bunk to the floor beside Jenkins’ bunk. How long has he been laying here, staring vacantly and thinking about Mason? He groans and covers his face with his hands, curling up on himself. The tight fabric he keeps wrapped around his chest is hurting. He should take it off, but he never does, not since he came to live here.

“Don’t worry.” Hobson has his head tilted back to rest against the thin mattress. “Cleaning duty doesn’t seem so bad. It’s only a week.”

That’s so far from what he’s worried about, but he’s grateful for something else to think about. “Yeah, but I’m not the cleaning type. That’s Cleon’s thing.”

“Just make sure to dust the corners.”

Jenkins sighs. “Yeah, yeah.”

“And pile all the dust on Rinaldo’s bed as punishment for being too strict with our training.”

“Holy _shit_ , Hobson.”

They all laugh and things are okay, crushes are momentarily forgotten, and they’re just kids. For now.

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to get a better feel for writing Jenkins so. makes vague gestures with my hands.  
> you can learn more about Cleon, Mason, and Jenkins in [dragged from the depths](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11412495). you can see what Mason and Jenkins look like [here](http://imgur.com/a/jIGtj) (pretty art i got commissioned...).
> 
> Cleon is about 17 here, Siam is 19, Mason and Jenkins are 12, which leaves Rulfio and the informant at age 10. that means Daud has a 10 year old informant. what is that man doing! well. it's good to have eyes on the streets, especially since Daud can't be everywhere at once. i'll write something about the informant (Jasper) at some point.
> 
> Siam and Jenkins are trans boys and Mason is agender.
> 
> leave a comment or a kudos if you liked it! and feel free to leave suggestions on what i should write next. there is [a whole list of whalers](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/Summon_Assassin/Names) that i refer to when writing these (as well as OCs of mine), so even just throwing a name at me can help me figure out what to write next.


End file.
